Tag Archives: Nordics

My book about the Scandinavian legacy in Minnesota politics out in April

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My book,”Scandinavians in the State House — How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics,”  will be out in April, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. scandinaviansbook

Here’s a blurb about it. The book is:

“The story of Nordic immigrant influence in Minnesota politics and culture, and the lasting legacy of a ‘Scandinavian state in the New World.’

Beginning in the 1850s, thousands of immigrants from Nordic countries settled in Minnesota and quickly established themselves in the political life of their new home. These Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, and Icelanders first sowed their political seeds at the local level—as town clerks, city councilmen, county commissioners, sheriffs—and then broadened their sights to the state and national realm. Nordic immigrants served as governors, as Minnesota state senators and representatives, as U.S. congressmen, and as vice presidents of the United States. Many came to this country for political reasons and became radicals and activists in Minnesota. Others served as key leaders within the state’s political parties.

In Scandinavians in the State House, Klas Bergman explores who these immigrant politicians were and what drove them to become civically involved so soon after arriving in Minnesota. Profiling the individuals and movements at the forefront of this political activity, at the state and local level, Bergman examines the diverse political philosophies of the immigrant communities and reveals the lasting legacy of Scandinavian politicians in the creation of modern Minnesota—from Nelson and Olson, to Andersen and Carlson, to Humphrey and Mondale.

Klas Bergman is a Swedish-American journalist and author. Born and raised in Stockholm, he is a graduate of Stanford University and has lived and worked in the United States for almost four decades. A veteran journalist and foreign correspondent, he has reported for both Swedish and American news organizations and has also held numerous positions in international/public affairs. Bergman is the author of two previous books — one, in Swedish, on the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe, and the second, in both Swedish and English, a personal and political retrospective on his years in the United States. Bergman lives with his wife in Silver Spring, Maryland. Follow him on Twitter @ksbergman.

Available April 15, 2017 from Minnesota Historical Society Press
$19.95 paper, 304 pages, 20 b&w photos, index, 6×9 inches, ISBN: 978-1-68134-030-2
$9.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-1-68134-031-9.”

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Nordic pragmatism as a recipe for success

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The Nordic countries, those up there at the top of Europe often called Scandinavia — Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway — came out on top of all the countries in the world in the Fragile States Index for 2014 published the other day.

Finland came out at the very top, the only country described as “very sustainable,” with Sweden, Denmark and Norway as the top three “sustainable” countries of the world, with Iceland, the fifth Nordic, in eighth place, and with the United States on twentieth place, part of a lower group of “stable” nations.

What do these five nations in northern Europe have in common? They are democracies with clean governments and a highly educated population. They value stability, common sense and results.

Maybe this can explain, at least in part, the unusual “December Accord” — even for Scandinavia — last Saturday, when six of the eight political parties in the Swedish parliament came together and cancelled a snap election scheduled for March and instead worked out a deal under which the minority government of Social Democrats and Greens, only three months old, will be able to govern, albeit on the basis of a budget hammered out by the four opposition parties.

The accord has not been well received by a number of different reasons, both on the left and on the right. But it did avoid a dreaded snap election, a seldom used ingredient in Swedish politics — 1958 was the last time that happened. The next Parliamentary election will now be the ordinary election in 2018.

The “December Accord” also served to continue to hold the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats on the far right at arms length, not including them in any deal, keeping them out of any government, and preventing them from dictating the composition and policies of the Swedish government.

As so many times before in the modern era, the Swedish politicians came together in a serious political crisis, “came to their senses,” as the leading newspaper Dagens Nyheter put it the other day. It was pragmatism for the good of the country, to achieve stability, get results, avoid chaos.  Here is the latest main editorial for those who can read Swedish!

Maybe this overarching pragmatism is the secret behind the success of those small Nordic countries, and a recipe for success for others? Maybe there is even something that those fighting forces in the U.S. Congress can learn from all this? Maybe, as I said.